Air conditioners, which are generally used as cooling and dehumidifying apparatuses, use refrigerants and are identified as a main cause of ozone depletion and global warming due to refrigerant leakage. In consideration of a problem of using such a refrigerant, energy ventilators which reduce a ventilation load by transmitting sensible heat and latent heat between discharged indoor air and suctioned outdoor air have been developed.
However, because a latent heat recovery rate is remarkably lower than a sensible heat recovery rate in conventional ventilators, there is a problem in that the conventional ventilators cannot respond to an increase in a cooling load. In consideration of such a conventional energy ventilator, regenerative evaporating type cooling technology has been developed.
The regenerative evaporating type cooling technology reduces air temperature using a cooling effect of water evaporation, can solve the problem of the conventional air conditioner because the technology does not use refrigerants except water, and can have an advantageous for sufficiently reducing a cooling load.
A cooler applied to such a regenerative evaporating type cooler is formed with continuously consecutively repeating wet channels and dry channels. Indoor air and outdoor air are mixed and pass through the dry channel, some air which has passed though the dry channel is exhausted through the wet channel wetted by water, and thus the water is induced to be evaporated. When the water evaporates from a surface of the wet channel, the surface of the wet channel is cooled and absorbs heat of the air which passed through the dry channel, and thus the air which has passed through the dry channel is cooled and supplied to the interior. In order to increase a contact area of a portion of the dry channel and the wet channel at which heat is exchanged, fins bent a plurality of times are used.
Here, the wet channel to which the exhausted air and water are supplied and the dry channel which supplies cooled air, should be completely separated from each other. To this end, air guides used for the wet channel and the dry channel are installed at a lower portion and an upper portion of structures formed with the alternately repeating wet channels and dry channels.
As such an example, in Korean Patent Registration No. 10-1055668, a structure includes a unit module (a heat exchanger in the present invention) in which a dry channel and a wet channel are repeatedly arranged and bonded and a wet channel guide duct which is formed at an outlet side of the wet channel and separates exhausted air from indoor air, and further includes a coupling unit which inserts the guide duct (an air guide in the present invention) into an inside or outside of the wet channel.
However, in a method in which the dry channel and the wet channel are separately formed and bonded to each other to form the unit module and an air guide is coupled to an upper and a lower portion of the unit module, because each of the components is manufactured individually and a process for assembling the components is required, there may be a problem in that a manufacturing cost increases, and particularly, cooling efficiency decreases because water leaks between the unit module and the air guide or exhausted air in the wet channel and indoor air in the dry channel are mixed.
Particularly, as the dry channel and the wet channel include fins of which cross section has a wave shape (bent a plurality of times), problems that the fins will be difficult to manufacture and a manufacturing cost thereof will be large may be predicted.
In addition, in Korean Patent No. 10-1207551, a structure in which a heat exchanging body formed of a metal material and a guide member formed of a synthetic resin are coupled was disclosed. Although a sealing member has to be applied between the heat exchanging body and the guide member of the structure to prevent water and air leaks, assembling the sealing member is not easy, and although the sealing member is applied thereto, sealing is difficult to keep, and evaporation water leaked through an assembly unit of the guide member is introduced to a dehumidifying rotor in a system and thus a cooling capacity is reduced and a failure of the rotor is induced, and thus there is a problem in that it is difficult to secure product reliability.